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Fencer Intel
medium 5.5

CVE-2026-23214 json

btrfs: reject new transactions if the fs is fully read-only

published 8mo ago modified 4d ago also EUVD-2026-8015

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 7%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

btrfs: reject new transactions if the fs is fully read-only

[BUG] There is a bug report where a heavily fuzzed fs is mounted with all rescue mount options, which leads to the following warnings during unmount:

BTRFS: Transaction aborted (error -22) Modules linked in: CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 9758 Comm: repro.out Not tainted 6.19.0-rc5-00002-gb71e635feefc #7 PREEMPT(full) Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.15.0-1 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:find_free_extent_update_loop fs/btrfs/extent-tree.c:4208 [inline] RIP: 0010:find_free_extent+0x52f0/0x5d20 fs/btrfs/extent-tree.c:4611 Call Trace: <TASK> btrfs_reserve_extent+0x2cd/0x790 fs/btrfs/extent-tree.c:4705 btrfs_alloc_tree_block+0x1e1/0x10e0 fs/btrfs/extent-tree.c:5157 btrfs_force_cow_block+0x578/0x2410 fs/btrfs/ctree.c:517 btrfs_cow_block+0x3c4/0xa80 fs/btrfs/ctree.c:708 btrfs_search_slot+0xcad/0x2b50 fs/btrfs/ctree.c:2130 btrfs_truncate_inode_items+0x45d/0x2350 fs/btrfs/inode-item.c:499 btrfs_evict_inode+0x923/0xe70 fs/btrfs/inode.c:5628 evict+0x5f4/0xae0 fs/inode.c:837 __dentry_kill+0x209/0x660 fs/dcache.c:670 finish_dput+0xc9/0x480 fs/dcache.c:879 shrink_dcache_for_umount+0xa0/0x170 fs/dcache.c:1661 generic_shutdown_super+0x67/0x2c0 fs/super.c:621 kill_anon_super+0x3b/0x70 fs/super.c:1289 btrfs_kill_super+0x41/0x50 fs/btrfs/super.c:2127 deactivate_locked_super+0xbc/0x130 fs/super.c:474 cleanup_mnt+0x425/0x4c0 fs/namespace.c:1318 task_work_run+0x1d4/0x260 kernel/task_work.c:233 exit_task_work include/linux/task_work.h:40 [inline] do_exit+0x694/0x22f0 kernel/exit.c:971 do_group_exit+0x21c/0x2d0 kernel/exit.c:1112 __do_sys_exit_group kernel/exit.c:1123 [inline] __se_sys_exit_group kernel/exit.c:1121 [inline] __x64_sys_exit_group+0x3f/0x40 kernel/exit.c:1121 x64_sys_call+0x2210/0x2210 arch/x86/include/generated/asm/syscalls_64.h:232 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:63 [inline] do_syscall_64+0xe8/0xf80 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:94 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f RIP: 0033:0x44f639 Code: Unable to access opcode bytes at 0x44f60f. RSP: 002b:00007ffc15c4e088 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 00000000000000e7 RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 00000000004c32f0 RCX: 000000000044f639 RDX: 000000000000003c RSI: 00000000000000e7 RDI: 0000000000000001 RBP: 0000000000000001 R08: ffffffffffffffc0 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 00000000004c32f0 R13: 0000000000000001 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: 0000000000000001 </TASK>

Since rescue mount options will mark the full fs read-only, there should be no new transaction triggered.

But during unmount we will evict all inodes, which can trigger a new transaction, and triggers warnings on a heavily corrupted fs.

[CAUSE] Btrfs allows new transaction even on a read-only fs, this is to allow log replay happen even on read-only mounts, just like what ext4/xfs do.

However with rescue mount options, the fs is fully read-only and cannot be remounted read-write, thus in that case we should also reject any new transactions.

[FIX] If we find the fs has rescue mount options, we should treat the fs as error, so that no new transaction can be started.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.1.191, 6.6.160, 6.12.70, 6.18.10, 6.19
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.73-1
  • linux Debian 14 6.18.10-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-23214

  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-117.117
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1055.58
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1058.61
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1054.60
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1055.56
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1056.62
  • linux-gkeop Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1041.44
  • linux-raspi Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1056.60

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-23214

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.34.1
  • kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.34.1
  • kernel-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.34.1
  • kernel-source SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.34.1
  • kernel-default SLE Workstation Extension 15 SP7, SLE Module for Legacy 15 SP7, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 +2 more 6.4.0-150700.53.34.1
  • kernel-zfcpdump SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.34.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.34.1
  • kernel-default-base SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.34.1.150700.17.23.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:1081-1SUSE-SU-2026:1041-1SUSE-SU-2026:20873-1SUSE-SU-2026:20838-1SUSE-SU-2026:20931-1SUSE-SU-2026:20845-1

  • kernel-rt openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.27.1
  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.27.1
  • kernel-64kb openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.27.1
  • kernel-syms openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.27.1
  • kernel-azure openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.27.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.27.1
  • kernel-source openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.27.1
  • kernel-default openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.27.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:20416-1

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-23214 updated cvss 5.1

kernel: btrfs: reject new transactions if the fs is fully read-only

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
4d ago

Exploit prediction

0.18% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 7% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.